Descent clearences of this nature, are at times unavoidable, due to a conflict prior to, or after a cross, but a necessary part of the job.,
If you cannot make it, PLEASE tell us, as the plan that we have, is based on you doing what we would like you to do if at allpossible, if you cant we will change the plan. We are a fairly flexible lot, but there is nothing worse than a late notification of an inability to make a restriction as this can leave us with little time to change the plan, and some increased heart rates for a few minutes!!
The other side of this is that if the descent is given in plenty of time, to be level by a point, please be level, not racing down the last few thousand, as the previous few thousand were at less than 500ft pm. We dont give them unnecesseraly, and i know that early descents of 10000-12000ft can be unpopular, but are there to make restrictions with adjacent ACC's from LOA's, and there is little or nothing that we can do about them. Depending on the hour of the day the descents may be given earlier due to a lot of opposite direction conflicting traffic.